This was rather startling news and caused a good deal of excitement in our camp.
The speakers were some scouts from the United States army, who were making a hurried trip from the head waters of the Missouri where the troops had gone to quell some Indian disturbance. They were now on their way to Saint Paul with dispatches for Washington.
Each night of our journey we had, in true western style hobbled our horses and left them to roam about and feed on the luxuriant grasses. This hobbling is merely the tying of the forefeet loosely together with soft leather thongs so that the animal in moving has to lift up both forefeet at once. Its movements being thus necessarily slow, there is no roaming very far from the camp. Having had no fear of danger, we had been very careless, leaving everything unguarded.
The terrible Sioux massacres a few years before in these very regions, were now being forgotten. It is true that as we journeyed, the ruins of the destroyed, and in many places, not yet rebuilt homesteads of the settlers, were vivid reminders of those dreadful frontier wars, when over nine hundred white people lost their lives. The Indians were now however far to the north and west of us, so that we had no fears as we leisurely moved along. Hence, it was somewhat startling when these picturesquely garbed scouts halted in our midst, and warned us to have a guard over our horses; telling us, that, the most notorious band of horse thieves was in the neighbourhood, and was rumoured to have heard that there was a party with some magnificent horses in the prairie country, and that doubtless, even now, they were on the lookout for us upon some of the trails.
After a short halt for a hurried meal, our bronzed well-armed visitors left us. The last we saw of them was as they galloped away southward on the trail.
Immediately a council was called, when it was decided to move on to the vicinity of Clearwater, and there remain until all the final preparations for our long trip were completed. Our horses were turned loose and hobbled during the day, but were not allowed to stray very far from the camp. Watchful eyes were ever upon them, and also scanning the prairies for suspicious intruders. Before sundown they were all gathered in and securely fastened in a large barn that stood out upon the prairie, the sole building left of a large farmstead: all the other buildings, including the dwelling house, had been burned during the Indian wars. No survivors or relatives had as yet come to claim the deserted place, and so the rich prairie grasses had almost covered with their green verdure the spot where the destroyed buildings once stood; and now all that remained to tell of former prosperity was this solitary old barn.
The men of our party were appointed to watch the barn during the night and protect the horses against all intruders. Two well armed persons were thought a sufficient guard for each of the eight or ten nights that we remained in that vicinity. One night a young man of our party and I were appointed to watch. He most thoroughly equipped himself with several varieties of weapons, resolved to be prepared for any emergency. I trusted to a quick-firing breech-loading rifle.
We gathered in the horses from the prairies, and were leading them toward the barn when we met the leader of our party, a man past middle life, most of whose years had been spent among the Indians, and in the great west.
Looking at us who were to be the guards of the horses that night, he said, with a sneer:
“Queer guards are you! I have some young Indians that could steal any horse in that crowd to-night from under your very nose.”